Asimov's SF, April/May 2011

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Perhaps especially for a writer as puissant as China Miéville.

  Kraken begins coherently enough as a mystery—who stole the squid and how was it possible—and metamorphoses into a kind of mystical mystery quest. So far, so good. But then Miéville starts throwing the schtick.

  One squid worshiping cult—hey, why not another? Why not an apostate from the first one, one mystical explication (or anti-explication) of what's behind the veil of the main line of the story, and another, and another? Do we need a mainline of the story? Maybe not—why not have several of them intercepting each other at harmonic points in the manner of a musical fugue? Do we really need neat and clear harmonic points? Isn't there such a thing as atonal music? Does the reader really have to ever understand all of what's going on?

  Didn't Aleister Crowley proclaim that “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law"?

  That, at least to me, is the haiku version of the central theoretical principle of the New Weird. Why should writers be bound by anything but the outer limits of their own imaginations? Why should fantasy be bound by pseudo-mimetic realism? Why not take the reader beyond even a consistent fantasy reality? It's all imaginary anyway, so why should fictional magic have any rules? Why restrain yourself at all?

  Boys just wanna have fun.

  Miéville starts throwing schtick for its own sake, and he certainly seems to be having fun, and fun shtick it is. Creatures of every form, every unnatural origin, every ectoplasmic existence, beings, magicks, satirical piss-takes, metaphorical political rapier thrusts, monsters in clown clothing, descending like a glittery snowfall of the unfettered imagination, as if Miéville had both hands in a bottomless literary toybox and was gleefully tossing its contents into the air, to the point where you wouldn't be surprised if the fabled kitchen sink itself came hurtling down through the cloud of deus ex machinas into which any coherent story line eventually dissolves.

  Write what thou wilt shall be the liberation from all laws!

  Welcome to the New Weird.

  But there's a practical problem with the New Weird, at least as exemplified by Kraken, which is entirely absent from The City and the City, which, as I hope I've made clear, is a much weirder novel, and an entirely successful one.

  The City and the City takes place in entirely fictional cities adrift somewhere in Ruritania and enthralled by their own bizarre ideology to the point where truly weird theory creates their really weird interpenetrating existence.

  Really weird but consistent.

  Kraken doesn't have any consistent literary reality where, while you don't know what comes next, you do know that it's not going to contradict the set-ups of what has gone before. Kraken drops new beings, new magical realities, new possible explanations of what has gone before all along the story line. Miéville keeps mutating what he's been building up to at many turns in the plot and going off on tangents.

  The problem is that you can't really tell a story this way, because a coherent story can't exist without some internal ground rules. You can't drop in another deus ex machina of whatever kind amuses you at the literary moment whenever you please and still have a real story, because if anything is possible, nothing is impossible, and if nothing is impossible at any moment, there can't be dramatic tension. And there can't be a real story without dramatic tension of some kind.

  Well, what if you don't want to be bound by the dramatic theorizing of a bunch of dead Greek males? Does a novel really need a story? Maybe not. many highly enjoyable novels and even some great ones—Gravity's Rainbow, The Flounder, Naked Lunch, etc.—are so discursive that any coherent story line through them gets lost in the deep background of the literary three ring circus.

  So okay, maybe you can write a successful novel where any dramatic story is nonexistent or incidental if it's just entertaining or at least involving on a page-by-page level. But I would still contend that you need at the very least some kind of rules of literary engagement—there has to be an overall set-up in which the events take place.

  Pardon me or not for using my own stuff as an explanatory example, but the most recent novel I've written, Welcome to Your Dreamtime, would seem to be a clear one. As the title itself proclaims, it all takes place in dreams. And as it hints, you yourself, the readers, not a fictional character, are the dreamers. No consistent story line. Not even a single character other than the reader. And we all know from personal experience that there are no rules of anything at all in the Dreamtime.

  We all know that our dreams are New Weird fantasies to the max. But what is, is real, and we all dream. So we all also know that dreams are real phenomena, contained by the reality of our existence, fantasy contained within science fiction, from a literary viewpoint.

  Which is enough to bring something like Welcome to Your Dreamtime together, if that paradox can be turned into a set-up. Which I did with a piece of science fiction tech that allows dreams to be written and produced like movies and sold to you, the reader, on dreamchips or downloads.

  And that was enough to turn a series of dreams independent of any internal rules into a book that was not just a collection of previously published stories, but a real novel that told the story not of any characters at all but of the rise of a new medium from schlock to a true art form, and a certain distance beyond.

  Okay, so maybe I am more hardcore in critical theory than in literary practice. but I would still contend that the New Weird could learn something from the history of western painting, which went from realistic mimesis of realistic subject matter to the hyperealistic renderings of things impossible by the Surrealists, to the freedom from any attempt at mimesis at all of the Cubists, to the total disconnect from anything other than its existence as paint on canvas of the Abstract Expressionists, which in retrospect now seems to have been a path better not followed, an evolutionary dead end.

  Give me Dali and Magritte and or even Frida Kahlo or Diego Rivera over Mark Rothko or Jackson Pollack.

  Give me The City and the City over Kraken.

  Give me a New Surrealism over a New Weird.

  Copyright © 2011 Norman Spinrad

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Department: SF CONVENTIONAL CALENDAR by Erwin S. Strauss

  In March and April, I'll be at LunaCon, RavenCon and ICon. Other good bets for Asimovians then are StellarCon, FogCon, Potlatch, FantaSciCon, MidSouthCon, AggieCon and MiniCon (and LepreCon in May). Plan now for social weekends with your favorite SF authors, editors, artists, and fellow fans. For an explanation of con(vention)s, a sample of SF folksongs, and info on fanzines and clubs, send me an S.A.S.E. (self-addressed, stamped 10 [business] envelope) at 10 Hill 22-L, Newark NJ 07102. The hot line is (973) 242-5999. If a machine answers (with a list of the week's cons), leave a message and I'll call back on my nickel. When writing cons, send an SASE. For free listings, tell me of your con five months out. Look for me at cons behind the Filthy Pierre badge, playing a musical keyboard. —Erwin S. Strauss

  MARCH 2011

  4-6—StellarCon. For info, write: 123 Main St., Greensboro NC 27413. Or phone: (973) 242-5999 (10 am to 10 pm, not collect). (Web) stellarcon.org. (E-mail) info@stellarcon.org. Con will be held in: High Point NC (if city omitted, same as in address) at the Best Western. Guests will include: Todd McCaffrey, Larry Elmore, Larry Correa, Rich Sigfrit, Jackie Cassada, Nicky Rea, Bill the Mann.

  4-6—Potlatch. potlatch-sf.org. Domain, Sunnyvale CA. Written speculative fiction; special theme: G. R. Stewart's “Earth Abides."

  4-6—Wild Wild West Con. (623) 237-3663. wildwildwestcon.com. Tucson AZ. The movie and TV show, and steampunk generally.

  10-13—EPICon. epic-conference.com. Williamsburg VA. “Electronically Published Internet Connection.” E-publishing conference.

  11-13—FogCon. fogcon.org. Holiday Inn Golden Gateway, San Francisco CA. Pat Murphy, Jeff Vandermeer. “The City in SF."

  11-13—RevelCon. severalunlimited.com. Houston TX. Relax-a-con for fans of adult media fanzines.

  11-13�
�ConJour. conjour.net. Houston TX. Jody Lynn Nye, P. L. Blair. Gaming emphasis.

  11-13—AniidaCon. aniida.webs.com. Airport Holiday Inn, Boise ID. Michael Coleman, Tiffany Grant. “East Bound and Down.” Anime.

  11-13—CoastCon. coastcon.org. Biloxi MS. Jeff Dee, Jack Herman, fan Jason Fisher. “Con of the Living Dead.” Much gaming.

  18-20—LunaCon, Box 432, Bronx NY 10465. lunacon.org. Hilton, Rye Brook NY. Schoen, Mayo, Eric “in the elevator” Zuckerman.

  18-20—FantaSciCon, 395 Stancil Rd., Rossville GA 30741. fantasci.com. Howard Johnson's Plaza Hotel, Chattanooga TN.

  18-20—AllCon, Box 177194, Irving TX 75019. all-con.org. Dallas, TX. Media and costuming emphasis.

  18-20—Anime Matsuri. animematsuri.com. Houston TX.

  18-20—ZenkaiKon, 421 Evergreen Ave., Hatboro PA 19040. zenkaikon.com. Convention Center, King of Prussia PA. Anime.

  18-20—A & G Ohio, 3907 Chickadee Ct., Westerville OH 43081. aandgohio.com. Cincinnati OH. Anime and gaming ("A & G").

  25-26—Conference on Middle Earth, c/o Box 2085, Albany NY 12220. 3rdcome.org. Regency Inn, Westford MA. Tolkien's works.

  25-27—MidSouthCon, Box 17724, Memphis TN 38187. midsouthcon.org. info@midsouthcon.org. “Multi-genre convention."

  25-27—AggieCon, Cepheid Variable (958460), Box 5688, College Station TX 77844. aggiecon.tamu.edu. Valente, Adams, Morke.

  25-27—Anime Conji. animeconji.org. Town & Country resort, San Diego CA.

  APRIL 2011

  1-3—BabelCon, Box 86580, Baton Rouge LA 70879. babelcon.org. Baton Rouge LA. SF, fantasy, and horror convention.

  8-10—RavenCon, Box 36240, Richmond VA 23235. ravencon.com. Holiday Inn Select Koger Center, Richmond VA.

  8-10—PortmeiriCon, 871 Clover Dr., N. Wales PA 19459. sixofone.co.uk. Portmeirion UK. Its fans go where “The Prisoner” filmed.

  15-17—ICon, Box 550, Stony Brook NY 11790. iconsf.org. State University of NY. Big convention of SF, fact, and fantasy.

  15-17—JordanCon. ageoflegends.net. Crowne Plaza Ravinia, Atlanta GA. David B. Coe, Eugie Foster. Celebrating Robert Jordan.

  22-24—MiniCon, Box 8297, Minneapolis MN 55408. mnstf.org. Sheraton South, Bloomington MN. Charles Stross, Chas Somdahl.

  28-May 1—World Horror Con, c/o ALAMO, Box 27277, Austin TX 78755. whc2011.org. S. Langan, Joe R. Lonsdale, S. Niles.

  28-May 1—Malice Domestic, Box 8007, Gaithersburg MD 20898. malicedomestic.org. Hyatt, Bethesda MD (near DC). Mysteries.

  29-May 2—CostumeCon, 1973 Pine Ridge, Bushkill PA 18324. cc29nj.com. Hilton, Hasbrouck Heights NJ (near NYC). Masqueraders.

  MAY 2011

  6-8—LepreCon, Box 26665, Tempe AZ 85284. leprecon.org. Mission Palms. J. Picacio, E. Bear, S. Monette. Emphasis on art.

  AUGUST 2011

  17-21—RenoVation, Box 13278, Portland OR 97213. renovationsforg. Reno NV. Asher, C. Brown (I. M.), Powers. WorldCon. $180+.

  AUGUST 2012

  30-Sep. 3—Chicon 7, Box 13, Skokie IL 60076. chicon.org. Chicago IL. Resnick, Morrill, Musgrave, Scalzi. WorldCon. $155.

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